A representative study by congstar and Girls & Gaming investigated how gamers feel about outdated images of women and sexism in the games industry. She hypothesizes that a third of gamers care about these issues and can even affect their decision to buy games.
The latest representative study, commissioned by the mobile phone provider congstar and Girls & Gaming, an initiative by allyance and YouTube, investigated which group of women is important to representation in games. In addition, it was asked whether reports of sexism in development teams affect the purchasing behavior of consumers. The study was carried out by the market research company Civey at the end of September this year. 1000 gamers who regularly play games in Germany were surveyed.
Overall, it can be said that the topics asked are important to many of the players, but not to the vast majority. Around 67 percent of those surveyed do not find it problematic if female characters are less prominent in games than men. 17 percent are undecided and only 16 percent are bothered by it.
When it came to sexism, the respondents answered much more sensitively. 28 percent of those surveyed said that reports of sexism within a studio influenced their purchasing decisions. There is a gender difference here. 22 percent of the male respondents said that reports of sexism influence their purchasing decisions. For female players it was significantly more at 38 percent.
The representation of non-binary and non-gender figures is even less important for the respondents. Only eight percent of respondents find a diverse presentation important. Again, there are strong deviations from target group to target group. 18 percent of 29 to 25-year-olds value diverse representation in the games.
The results show that the topic still receives too little attention from buyers and manufacturers. Consumer pressure on the industry must continue to increase. After all, 69 percent of all male and at least 47 percent of all female participants in the study were not influenced in their purchasing decisions by sexism reports.
